Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many players have tried to complete the game with just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That creates new problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.